A delicate effort to reach a young girl buried in the ruins of her school stretched into a new day on Thursday, a vigil broadcast across the nation as rescue workers struggled in rain and darkness to pick away unstable debris and reach her.
Dominicaβs leader sent out an emotional plea for help as Hurricane Maria smashed into the Caribbean island and caused βmind-bogglingβ devastation, but an ominous silence followed as the country lost all communications on Tuesday and the Category 5 hurricane barreled toward Puerto Rico, which looked likely to take a direct hit.
Emergency workers around hurricane-scarred Florida worked to make sure elderly residents were safe, evacuating multiple assisted-living facilities, after eight people died in a sweltering nursing home that lost its air conditioning in the storm.
The National Hurricane Center said Irma had winds of 120 mph (195 kilometers) and was centered 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of Naples on Sunday afternoon. It was moving north at 12 mph (19 kilometers per hour). At that rate, the center of the storm should come ashore sometime between 4 and 5 p.m.